Last year was all bout smartphone fires and about the infamous Samsung Galaxy Note 7 which was LIT (pun intended)! Long story short, lots of Note 7 handsets started randomly catching fire and Samsung recalled all the units and hence, the ‘Note 7 bursting into flames’ jokes came into being. In a rather bizarre news, a Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 was caught on tape bursting into flames in a shop in Bengaluru.

As the shopkeeper was trying to insert a Sim card in the phone, it caught fire after an explosion and burned the handset’s entire body. In the video, you can see that the phone isn’t connected to any charger or an accessory and quite astonishingly burst into flames while the retailer was handling the phone. A lot of similar cases are a result of overheating due to charging, so this is a rather rare case and quite bizarre.

Image via TechCase

In a yet another Firegate incident, the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 bursting into flames seems like an isolated incident and although it is scary, no one in the incident got hurt. After Samsung Galaxy Note 7, this news comes in as a shock as we expect all the smartphone makers to be on top of their stop-the-phone-from-catching-fire game. We will reiterate that this is an isolated incident and doesn’t necessarily indicate and serious or inherent problem in the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4.

Late on Monday, Xiaomi released a statement which indicates that it believes the video is of an unrelated incident. Here’s Xiaomi India’s statement on the incident:

At Xiaomi, customer safety is of utmost importance to us. We investigated the Redmi Note 4 in the images, and concluded that it was a case of damage due to a faulty third-party charger used by the customer. Nonetheless we worked with the Poorvika store where the unit was bought, and replaced the customer’s damaged unit with a brand new Redmi Note 4. However, after a thorough investigation, we cannot validate the source of this video, as it has no relation to this case, and was not from the Poorvika store. In fact, it is unclear if this separate and unrelated incident depicted in the video involved a Xiaomi device.

Note- It appears that the video is fake and iGyaan has received the following statement from Xiaomi

At Xiaomi, customer safety is of utmost importance to us.

Recently, a video has been shared across a few news publications claiming that a Redmi Note 4 unit experienced an explosive scenario. We would like to state that this video has no relation to the concerned Redmi Note 4.

After an internal investigation, we found that the only recent incident of a burnt Redmi Note 4 stemmed from a Bangalore based customer – Arjun. He had purchased a Redmi Note 4 from a Poorvika store in Bangalore on 1st June 2017. His phone was damaged at his home on 17th July 2017, following which he took the phone to the aforementioned Poorvika store on the same day.

As soon as we were alerted to this incident, we took the device back. After a thorough technical investigation, we found out that the damage was caused due to a faulty third-party charger used by the customer. In addition, there were signs of physical damage on the phone as well.

We advise our customers to only use Xiaomi authorized chargers and accessories.

Regarding the video being circulated, we would like to clarify the following points:
(1) The video was attained from a random WhatsApp group, and has nothing to do with this recent Redmi Note 4 case.
(2) In fact, there is no evidence in the video to suggest that the device is a Redmi Note 4 or any other Xiaomi phone.
(3) The video is not from the aforementioned Poorvika store, or any other Poorvika store. On further investigation, we found that the CCTV video was from a retailer in Anamangad, Kerala. Xiaomi India only started selling devices at 3G and Fone 4 stores a few weeks ago in Kerala.
(4) The CCTV video was recorded on a different date, not 1st June (when Arjun bought the phone) or 17th July (when his phone got damaged).
(5) The customer in the video is not Arjun. He has confirmed to Xiaomi that the people in the video does not include or represent him or any of his relatives.

It is unfortunate that a member of the technology blogging fraternity used a video of an unrelated incident attained from a WhatsApp group, and merged it with the above-mentioned case involving Arjun, without doing any investigation. We find this behaviour very irresponsible and disturbing. We are currently evaluating legal action against this publication.

To all our Mi Fans, we would like to re-emphasize that safety is of utmost importance to us! All of our devices go through stringent quality tests to ensure that you get the best quality. We will once again encourage everyone to only use Xiaomi authorized chargers and accessories.